We’ve been enjoying a month of lovely visitors, good conversations, and happy plants doing what we want them to do. Even better, we’ve had heavy rain for more than a day, so now the bird song is back in abundance and everything looks lush.

It’s a warm sunny day as I write. What confusing weather we have had this month. A friend visited yesterday and took some photos which she has generously let me use in this newsletter. It is always interesting to see how others view a garden.

We leave our home in Normandy in France to return home to New Zealand in a couple of days. It will take quite a while to walk around the garden and see everything that is happening.

I am writing to you from our home in Normandy in France. For new readers, we bought our house in a small village seven years ago.

Our work in the garden has paused while we, like many others around the country, are having lots of rain. It’s a good time to reflect and plan more.

In Canterbury we have been enjoying a late ‘summer’ with days going to 20°C or more, making it ideal weather for raking autumn leaves, weeding, cutting back the perennials and planting out.

We are having the most gorgeous days, with chilly nights, which make the days even more appreciated.

Over the past few weeks, Oxalis ‘Ken Aslet’ has had a few flowers and each time I look at it I think of the late Malcolm Shearer, my dear friend, who, along with his wife Anne, shared so many inspirational times with me in our garden and theirs.

An exciting thing happened last week. One of my plants, Kirengishoma palmata, came in to flower for the first time for me.

For forty years I have been visiting Ship’s Cove at Endeavour Inlet in the Marlborough Sounds.